Chapter 32
CAPTAIN LUKE WARREN arrived on Rodeo Drive at 3:18 that afternoon and found five squad cars double-parked and uniforms keeping the tourists away from the entrance to the ritzy boutique Mariah Koo.
The first responder was Officer Fox Welky. Welky was from the Wilshire Division, Warren’s precinct, and was waiting for him at the curb. Warren opened his car door, and Welky walked him to the sidewalk, talking the whole time.
Welky said, “Why I called you, Captain. There were these two guys, one maybe fifty, the other about thirty, foreign accents, sounds like the guys who mugged those women at the Beverly Hills.
“These foreigners were in the store for about a half hour then left with a couple of women plus a jacket that had a ticket price of two thousand nine hundred ninety-nine dollars plus tax. They didn’t pay.
“Brian James Finnerty, he’s a salesclerk here.” Welky indicated the store with his thumb. “He ran out to get the crooks to come back in and pay up. He put his hand on the younger one’s arm and the guy turned on him and used some kind of karate. Really hurt the kid. Broke some of his ribs, for sure.
“Then the same thirtyish guy beat up on this other kid. Ravi Hoffman. Hoffman is on his way to the hospital to be checked for head trauma.
“Hold on, Captain, I got the goon’s name here.”
Welky took out his notebook, said, “Khezir Mazul. I think I said that right. He’s the one did the beatings, and Finnerty can identify him. Said he had a lot of weird tattoos over most of his body. And he also had tattoos circling his arms that looked like writing.”
Warren said, “Is the Finnerty kid okay?”
Welky said, “I think so, Captain. He’s hurt, but he’s talking. Ambulance is on the way for him.” Then Welky went on. “Mazul and the other one were last seen driving toward Santa Monica in a midnight-blue Bentley with rental plates. Those are the guys you’re looking for, right, Captain?”
“Nice work, Welky. Very good job.”
Sirens were singing up Wilshire.
Welky said, “Thanks, Captain. Finnerty is still inside, and we also got other witnesses who were watching through the door.”
Captain Warren went through the black glass doors into a slick clothing store that didn’t appeal to him at all. Too much black. Looked like the walking dead shopped here.
Warren found Finnerty lying in a fetal position on a checkered rug, squirming and crying and rocking himself. A bunch of twenty-something salespeople were clustered around him.
“Brian? Are you Brian Finnerty? Brian, the ambulance is coming now. Anyone else see what happened here?”
A salesgirl with white-blond hair identified herself as Angela Lanzadoro. Ms. Lanzadoro said she’d helped a couple of women tourists, sold one of them a Nicole Miller dress.
“They’re mother and daughter. Susan and Serena Stanley from Ann Arbor. The older man, his name was Gozan? He friended them? He and his boyfriend.”
“What makes you say they were boyfriends?”
“I’ve got excellent gay-dar, Officer. Anyway, I think they made plans to have dinner with Susan and Serena tonight.”
The hair on the back of Luke Warren’s neck stood up. He knew full well that those douche bags were not gay.
“Do you know where the Stanleys are staying?”
“They never said.”
“I need a copy of their sales receipt.”
Captain Warren knew there was little he could do to put the blocks to Remari and Mazul. Even if they were caught with the stolen jacket in their possession, even if they were positively identified by Brian Finnerty, it would still be swept under the diplomatic-immunity rug.
The captain got the name of the Stanley women’s hotel from the credit card company and he called their room. No one answered, so he left a message on voice mail asking them to get back to him immediately and not to go anywhere with the men they had met at Mariah Koo.
Then he called Jack Morgan.